


cursed

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 16:42:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20177485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A series of short works, each one based on each of the Nine Titans (and seven shifters) based on their deepest feelings, regrets and dreams. Set just before the Battle of Shiganshina (854).





	cursed

**Author's Note:**

> i hadn't written anything for a while, so this was just something to get me back into it! tysm for reading <3

**i. The Coordinate at the Center of It All**

Everything is falling into place at last. Eren has no regrets, or so he tells himself, but that doesn’t stop his heart from aching. So many lives were lost because of him, bodies piled up beneath the rubble he created. So many innocent Eldians, his people, the only difference being they were from the other side of the sea. Sasha, his friend, one of the people he cared for most in the world, is dead as a consequence of his actions. He doesn’t resent the girl who killed her - Gabi - not one bit. They’reone and the same. She’s just a child fighting for freedom, avenging the people she loves. Eren was that child once. He has no right to judge her for it.

Perhaps the thing that hurt the most was what he had to say to Armin and Mikasa, his best friends in the world, the only people who have been beside him through all of this. He told so many cruel lies to save them from himself. This plan would never work otherwise. But the look on Mikasa’s face when he told her he hated her, the way Armin attacked him and looked angrier than Eren ever thought possible… That broke his heart. It’s what needed to be done. He had to become a monster in order to protect them. But that doesn’t make it any less painful.

He’s gotten so good at masking his feelings, no longer the reckless and impulsive child who couldn’t keep his emotions under control. He just has to keep this facade up a little longer. When he meets Zeke, when they touch, it all will have been worth something. If he can use the power of the Founder he can release Eldians from the nightmare they’ve been living for two thousand long years. It’s only a matter of time.

**ii. The Cart That Carries A Heavy Load**

Pieck doesn’t trust the Marleyans, nor does she feel any sense of unwavering loyalty to her motherland. But she loves and trusts the comrades she has grown up with, and vows to fight alongside them until her term is up. Reiner and Porco are the only ones still here. Bertolt and Marcel are dead, Annie is missing in action, and Zeke… Thinking about his betrayal makes Pieck’s heart ache. The man she once revered and looked up to, who tended to her wounds when she fell over during training to be a warrior, who kept her company when the rest of her friends were off on their mission inside the walls of Paradis.“Boy Wonder” is what they called him. Now Zeke is nothing more than a traitor in all of their eyes. Pieck would never betray the people she loves like that.

She hopes Gabi and Falco are safe. Her mission now is to infiltrate the military of Paradis and pose as one of their own. They will stop Eren Jaeger, retake the Founder from him, and restore Marley to its former military glory. That’s been the goal all along. Pieck wishes they could have achieved it without so many lives going to waste. Marcel, Bertolt, now Zofia and Udo whose lives were taken from them so young. No one even knows where Annie is, or if she’s alive. Reiner is a shell of his former self. War, Pieck thinks, is truly a cruel and horrifying thing.

There’s no guarantee their mission will succeed, but Pieck promises herself she will do everything in her power to ensure it does. For the sake of Gabi and Falco. For the sake of her friends. For the sake of all the Eldians back home in Liberio. They must succeed.

**iii. The Jaws of Death Will Come **

More than anything, Porco wishes he could be courageous like his brother. Marcel was always the leader of the warrior candidates, brave and trustworthy with a heart of gold. That’s how Porco wants to be remembered too. He knows he’s always been better than Reiner, a coward who only became a warrior because of his unfaltering devotion to Marley, who lived in Marcel’s place when he should have been the one to die. Porco resents him for it. But he loves him, because Reiner is one of the only people he has left, and he’s proved in these past four years that he’s deserving of his respect. Even if Porco would never admit that to him. He cares for Reiner and though they have their squabbles, he'd do anything to protect him.

That’s the sort of person Porco is. Selfless, willing to throw himself into the fire to save the people he loves. Not like Reiner who will cower in fear and let others die to protect him. Porco has always been better than him. But still he respects Reiner, cares about him, even though he doesn’t deserve it. Why should Porco care about the man who left his big brother for dead? But he does. It’s funny, really, how much he cares. When he was a child he was jealous of Reiner, couldn’t understand why that weakling was chosen to inherit the Armor instead of him. Knowing the things Reiner has been through, he isn’t jealous anymore. He was a changed man ever since coming back from Paradis. Something broke inside of him, something that can never be fixed. If anything Porco feels sorry for him now.

**iv. The Girl Who Lies In A Cold Coffin**

Deep underground, Annie is trapped in a coffin of her own creation.

The war outside rages on and never reaches her. She’s deaf to the screams and blind to the bloodshed. She sealed her fate four years ago when she took the coward’s way out, too scared to face the truth of what she’d done, too ashamed to face the people she’d hurt. She never meant for things to turn out this way. All her life she doubted the Marleyan propaganda instilled into her since she was a young child, that the Eldians of Paradis were devils who would destroy the world. None of it was ever true. All an elaborate lie. But Annie is responsible for thousands of them dying. She let her comrades die, took Marco’s gear and did nothing as he screamed for her to save him. She isn’t a good person. That’s all she ever wanted to be. A good person to someone, a friend. Annie is a lost girl, afraid of what she’s become.

Her father has spent nine long years waiting for his daughter’s return home. Each morning when he wakes and each night before he sleeps he prays for her safety, and knows in his heart she’ll come back to him one day. She isn’t dead. She can’t be, because she promised that she’d come home. Annie is a good girl. She wouldn’t break a promise like that.

**v. My Armor Isn’t Strong Enough**

Saving Gabi and Falco is the only thing keeping Reiner going.

Marcel put his own life in danger to protect him and all Reiner could do was run away and leave him for dead. He left Annie too, her whereabouts on the island unknown, she could be anywhere right now and Reiner would have no idea. He let Bertolt get eaten and lost his best friend, the only person who ever truly understood him.There’s nothing he can ever do to bring him back. He will not make the same mistakes again, he will not let Gabi and Falco suffer because of his incompetence as a warrior. He will do whatever it takes to bring them home.

Inside the crevices of his fractured mind and shattered heart, Reiner still wishes he could fade away and disappear forever. He doesn’t want to live in this world anymore. The only thing that stopped him from blowing his brains out was those kids… How could he kill himself when they admire him so much, look up to him like he’s their big brother? It would be the coward’s way out. Reiner has to atone for his sins. He doesn’t deserve a quick end to it all.

Those kids are resilient, but they’re just children. The same age he was when he came to this island of devils for the first time. Back then he really believed all the Eldians on Paradis were devils. Then he slept under the same roof as them, ate with them, lived alongside them for five years. He made friends he still misses sometimes. He did things that make him sick to his stomach. If anyone’s the devil, it’s him. Him and Eren Jaeger, who took fate into his own hands and destroyed the town Reiner called home. So many innocent people dead, and for what cause? The same as when Reiner was just a child and broke down Wall Maria. The suffering never stops. Sometimes he wishes he had never been born at all.

**vi. The Hammer of Fate Will Strike Soon**

Staring out of the window at his hometown, Eren reflects on the life he once lived.

Shiganshina was the only home he knew for ten years. He still misses his mother and his heart is still raw like it was only yesterday she died. He loved her dearly, even when she was shouting at him for getting into a scuffle or trying to force him to eat his vegetables. She never had a care in the world, free from the burdens that still hold Eren down. She loved him unconditionally and told him how special he was for being born into this world. Eren wonders what she’d think of him now.

He loved his father too, but ever since learning the truth of who he really was he hasn’t been able to think of him in the same way. His father’s memories are overwhelming. Sometimes Eren worries he’s turning into him and losing any sense of himself. He cries out for Dina in his sleep, finds himself grieving a little girl who died years before he was born, feels the guilt of being a bad father to Zeke deep within his soul. He’s prepared to carry this burden for the sake of humanity, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t difficult. Reliving memories he never lived through in the first place would be enough to drive him insane if he didn’t have such a strong will.

He used to be so carefree and thought nothing of the world outside the walls. Until Armin showed him that book… A giant lake of saltwater, fields of sand, mountains made of ice, all the things they dreamed of for years… Armin was right about all those things. It fills Eren with a sense of melancholy pride thinking back on how insistent his best friend was back then, those bright hazel eyes filled with curiosity. But the freedom they thought they’d find outside the walls was never real, just a fantasy they deluded themselves with. The only thing on the other side of the ocean is more suffering. Their fellow Eldians on the continent are not free, trapped behind walls the same way the people of Paradis have been for so long. None of them have ever been free. Eren vows to break all their chains.

**vii. Don’t Feed the Beast, His Hunger Will Only Grow**

It would be better if Eldians were never born at all.

That was Xaver’s dream and it’s Zeke’s too, a dream he is resolutely determined to fulfil. All he needs to do is come into contact with his little brother. Then the two of them can harness the power of the Founder together and make it so that no Eldian will ever be born again. Of course, Zeke knows there’s a possibility his brother isn’t really on his side. But he’s ready to face that setback head on if it comes to that. He will show Eren how brainwashed he is by his father, make him realize how much suffering there will be if Eldians continue to exist, make him believe in the dream that Xaver shared with him all those years ago.

It’s almost time now. Zeke is so desperate now, hungry for it. He’s spent his whole life waiting for this moment. Ever since he was that scared young boy who traded his parents’ lives for his own safety. Xaver said he was a good boy, a smart boy. Grisha had never told him that before. All that child ever wanted was to be loved and noticed by someone.

But Zeke isn’t a child anymore. Looking back on all the pain and suffering he’s had to face, the pain of suffering of other Eldians around him, he knows in his heart this is the right path. He will end this nightmare for good. No more of his people, the descendants of devils, will be born into this cruel world that hates them so much. He will succeed.

**viii. The Heart of the Colossus**

Armin wonders how time passed by so quickly. They’re all grown up now, and the lives they once led are nothing more than distant memories. How he yearns for those days back, the days before everything changed forever. They’ve all lived through so much, a nightmare that never seems to end, ever since the wall was broken that day long ago. He still remembers. How could he ever forget? He remembers looking up at the wall in terror, afraid of what was to come. He remembers staring down at the city before him, the god of destruction who had come to destroy the people within the walls. He's seen that horror from both sides now.

Locked in this dungeon, there’s an air of tension between them all. Mikasa is quiet and solemn, no doubt still thinking about all those cruel words Eren uttered to her, the way he called her nothing more than a slave forced to follow her instincts. Armin had been almost ready to kill him then. Almost. But he knows inside his heart the things Eren said weren’t true. They could never be true. He’s been Eren’s best friend for over ten years, knows him better than anyone. There’s no way Eren could ever hate Mikasa, and there’s no way he could ever partake in Zeke’s plan. Eren’s goal has always been freedom, saving people from the cages and chains they are trapped in. He wants people to live, to thrive, to be free. He would never condone the things Zeke wants. It must all just be part of his plan, he has to go along with Zeke until he accesses the Founder’s power. Eren is a lot smarter than anyone gives him credit for.

But still, Armin feels like he’s mourning. There’s a part of Eren they will never get back. There are things he’s said, actions he’s taken, that can never be undone. Things will always be different from now on. It makes Armin’s heart feel like it will split in two.

He was given a second chance at life, and the price for that is having to carry this burden. It’s a cruel twist of irony how he has been granted this godlike power to cause unfathomable destruction, but deep down he’s still the same peaceful boy who dreams of a world where everyone can be free. Destruction isn’t in his nature.

Armin thinks of the ocean, those white waves crashing against the rocks, and he wonders if he’ll ever get the chance to see it one last time.

**ix. Always Moving Forward, Seeking Freedom**

_If you want to save them all…_

This is what must be done. It’s so close now. Eren can feel it. Soon this nightmare will be over for good.

_ Mikasa, Armin and the others… _

He’s been striving for freedom ever since Armin showed him that book and he learned about the outside world. He’s been determined to stop the suffering in this cruel world ever since he saved Mikasa that day.

_Carry out your mission until the end…_

He has to sacrifice himself to set the rest of them free. But he’s always been prepared for that. This is the path he chose.


End file.
